Host a Family Olympics

You don’t need much to organize your own Family Olympics: just a few easy-to-find items and some open space, whether a park, a beach, or a swimming pool. There are so many games and sports to choose from, so get creative and come up with a schedule of events that build on the strengths of everyone playing!

Tips:

Get into teams of pairs: You’ll want enough people to make at least two or three teams, but more is better, so ask friends, cousins, and neighbors to join in on the fun.

Bring some healthy snacks and lots of water! Add in some breaks to your official schedule so everyone stays energized and hydrated.

Make designing a uniform your first contest! Give each team the same plain white T-shirts, plus fabric markers or paint, glue, and whatever fun add-ons you can find, and decorate the shirts based on a team theme.

Ball Toss: Bring buckets and containers of various sizes, then scatter them around the field and mark them with different point values based on the distance from a throw line. Kids line up at the throw line and take aim to see who can make the most points.

Cup Stacking: See how many plastic cups they can stack in a tower or how long they can keep it up.

Hoola Hooping: Who can keep it going the longest?

Bucket Race: Place water-filled buckets on one end of the field and empty buckets at the other end. Competitors use cups to transfer all the water from one bucket to the other. First team with an empty bucket wins.

Crab-Walk Scramble: Use shoes or objects to mark the length of the race. Then choose one teammate to go first, and have the other teammate wait across from them on the other side. Get on your hands and feet with your stomach facing up, and crab walk to your partner, and then tag your teammate for their turn to finish the race!

Water balloon toss: Have teams stand across from each other and toss a water balloon back and forth. The last team to have their balloon pop wins!

Three-Legged Race: Partner up parents and children. Loosely tie mom or dad’s ankle to the child’s with a bandanna. Fastest one to the finish line wins.

At the end of the games, have an awards ceremony where each player gets recognized with an Olympic medal, which you can make out of construction paper and ribbon. And remember, you don’t have to wait every four years to do it again!